THE ENCHANTMENT OF LITERATURE: A HISTORICAL EXAMINATION OF MEDIEVAL SCHOLARLY MAGIC AND TEXTS

A growing body of research is focusing on religion's "critical categories," and this study provides afresh perspective on this topic: When studying concepts that are both malleable and multipurpose,researchers have the challenge of eliciting accurate understandings of these terms while also resolvingheated debates about their appropriate use. This article argues that rather than reducing the semanticrichness of these categories just via "definitions," should acknowledge polysemantic as a fundamentalfeature of most, if not all, of these categories in religious studies. Additionally, the research presents anovel methodological tool known as "polysemantic analysis."